Wes Phillips

No, that's a $2900 painting of an extension cord—and, God help me, I want it.

According to www.after50health.com "The classic part of a classical music is that it will not distract the attention of the listener and at the same time be able to instill relaxed feeling in the minds of listener."

Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music, has a website with a bunch of interesting music-related material, as well as a nifty little animated feature on his book.

Bagheera is the mistress of the disbelieving glare.

One of the treats of my Thanksgiving was an up-close-and-personal analysis of my 14^th century musical manuscript by Metropolitan Museum fellow Eric Weaver. I was reasonably sure of its date, based on the staff structure and mensuration, but Eric taught me an immense amount about parchment, calligraphy, illumination, monastic culture, and medieval guilds in the 30 minutes or so that he discussed my musical fragment. In short, he took an object I see above my hi-fi every day and made an epoch come alive—conversationally and off-the-cuff.

It's a sensory-motor memory thing.

Year's best sports-related story—2007 is going to have to really be wild to better this one.